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HE CRIED so hard as he watched his father's coffin enter the flames at Mandai Crematorium on Wednesday that it cost him his life.
Mr Tan Yuan Ping, 43, collapsed and fell unconscious. He died without waking up.
Mr Tan was devastated when his father, who lived with him, came down with final-stage lung cancer, said his sister, Madam Zhong Mei Rong.
"He couldn't accept the news that my father had cancer," she told Chinese evening newspapers Lianhe Wanbao and Shin Min Daily News.
The father, 83, was hale and hearty until a seemingly innocuous fall in their Hougang home last month started the tragic chain of events, family members said.
A day after his fall, the elderly man went to a hospital to treat scrapes on his face and hand. To his family's horror, the routine health check-up revealed that he was in the final stages of lung cancer.
The family said doctors told them that further treatment would be pointless, the newspapers reported.
His son, a hawker's assistant, couldn't accept the news that his father had cancer.
Madam Zhong, 53, said: "My father had always been healthy and there were no signs. My brother just kept asking why it happened."
Shortly after he was diagnosed, the father was checked into a hospice, where he spent his final days.
Family secret
In a twist, Mr Tan found out a family secret while checking his father into the hospice.
When he and his sister were filling out forms, Madam Zhong had no choice but to admit to hospice staff that they were not the elder Mr Tan's biological children.
It was a secret that was kept from his son, but knowing the truth did not change Mr Tan's love and devotion to his father, she said.
"If the news had any effect on their relationship, it was only to make my brother more filial.
"He was overcome with gratitude towards my father, who had doted on him all these years," Madam Zhong said.
When his father died a week ago, intense grief took its toll on Mr Tan, who barely slept and ate during the five days of his father's wake.
His grief reached a climax on the day his father was due to be cremated.
"He was crying uncontrollably on the way to the crematorium. When we reached the viewing gallery where the body was about to be cremated, he began wailing loudly," Madam Zhong said.
Mr Tan collapsed to the ground just as his father's coffin entered the flames.
"We saw the photo of our father, which my brother was holding, fall. The next thing we knew, he fell backwards onto the ground in an unconscious state," said Madam Zhong.
Family members who rallied around Mr Tan while waiting for the ambulance noticed that he was bleeding from the mouth.
Mr Tan is survived by his Indonesian wife and two sons, aged four and eight.
Madam Jia Feng Qiu, 38, who was with her husband in the ambulance, said: "Doctors told us that they couldn't operate because a blood vessel had burst in his brain.
"We could only let him leave peacefully."
She added that her husband had always been healthy.
Madam Jia, who is from Kalimantan, is now worried about her future in Singapore. She has been here for eight years but is not a permanent resident.
Said Madam Jia, who has been on a long-term visit pass: "I don't have a job, so I've been depending on my husband to apply for PR status for me. But we've been unsuccessful all these years.
"I don't know how to continue living if I have to return home. There will be no one and no money for my kids."
Mr Tan Yuan Ping, 43, collapsed and fell unconscious. He died without waking up.
Mr Tan was devastated when his father, who lived with him, came down with final-stage lung cancer, said his sister, Madam Zhong Mei Rong.
"He couldn't accept the news that my father had cancer," she told Chinese evening newspapers Lianhe Wanbao and Shin Min Daily News.
The father, 83, was hale and hearty until a seemingly innocuous fall in their Hougang home last month started the tragic chain of events, family members said.
A day after his fall, the elderly man went to a hospital to treat scrapes on his face and hand. To his family's horror, the routine health check-up revealed that he was in the final stages of lung cancer.
The family said doctors told them that further treatment would be pointless, the newspapers reported.
His son, a hawker's assistant, couldn't accept the news that his father had cancer.
Madam Zhong, 53, said: "My father had always been healthy and there were no signs. My brother just kept asking why it happened."
Shortly after he was diagnosed, the father was checked into a hospice, where he spent his final days.
Family secret
In a twist, Mr Tan found out a family secret while checking his father into the hospice.
When he and his sister were filling out forms, Madam Zhong had no choice but to admit to hospice staff that they were not the elder Mr Tan's biological children.
It was a secret that was kept from his son, but knowing the truth did not change Mr Tan's love and devotion to his father, she said.
"If the news had any effect on their relationship, it was only to make my brother more filial.
"He was overcome with gratitude towards my father, who had doted on him all these years," Madam Zhong said.
When his father died a week ago, intense grief took its toll on Mr Tan, who barely slept and ate during the five days of his father's wake.
His grief reached a climax on the day his father was due to be cremated.
"He was crying uncontrollably on the way to the crematorium. When we reached the viewing gallery where the body was about to be cremated, he began wailing loudly," Madam Zhong said.
Mr Tan collapsed to the ground just as his father's coffin entered the flames.
"We saw the photo of our father, which my brother was holding, fall. The next thing we knew, he fell backwards onto the ground in an unconscious state," said Madam Zhong.
Family members who rallied around Mr Tan while waiting for the ambulance noticed that he was bleeding from the mouth.
Mr Tan is survived by his Indonesian wife and two sons, aged four and eight.
Madam Jia Feng Qiu, 38, who was with her husband in the ambulance, said: "Doctors told us that they couldn't operate because a blood vessel had burst in his brain.
"We could only let him leave peacefully."
She added that her husband had always been healthy.
Madam Jia, who is from Kalimantan, is now worried about her future in Singapore. She has been here for eight years but is not a permanent resident.
Said Madam Jia, who has been on a long-term visit pass: "I don't have a job, so I've been depending on my husband to apply for PR status for me. But we've been unsuccessful all these years.
"I don't know how to continue living if I have to return home. There will be no one and no money for my kids."
